Metropolitan Kliment: DESS refused to approve the new Charter of the UOCC

The head of the Synodal Information and Education Department of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Kliment (Vecherya), has said that the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience (DESS) refused to register the new Statute on the governance of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church adopted at the Theophany Council in 2022. The hierarch noted that in this way the State Service artificially created an obstacle, complicating state-church relations. This was stated by the hierarch on the air of YouTube channel «Viche».

«I think that the DESS is now the very organization that comes up with «stumbling blocks» for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, because directly to this organization was sent a copy of the updated Charter on the governance of the UOC for approval. To what we received a reply — that they will not approve it. Therefore, if they had approved this Statute in accordance with the way all previous versions of the Statutes on the governance of the UOC were approved, then, perhaps, they would have had far fewer questions, » — said the bishop.

Earlier, Metropolitan Kliment (Vecherya) said that representatives of the State Service for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience should be held responsible for the fact that they used documents of the Russian Orthodox Church, which is banned in Ukraine, in their research on the UOC .